Wonderful - thanks.   The only visualizing I've come across is in Shanqing Daoism (and a couple of others) that involves intricately visualizing deities.   There is no old Qi Gong method I know of that involves visualizing Qi, or Dantiens or anything else like that. The effects of internal practice will create a visual inner experience, yes - but that's very different from using imagination to visualize a result.   However, modern practitioners and translators - confounded by reading some of the classics, concluded that this is all based on imagination... Here's a wonderful example from one of your sources:       So this highly 'explicit description of visualization' was actually just "He maintained his awareness"... And I guess maybe some of the terms like "Yellow Court" or "Purple Chamber"...   Translations are full of these assumptions and lazy interpretations.   I've spoken at length with a number of advanced practitioners in these arts about visualization. None of them use visualization in their own practice.   But a few told me how they use visualizations with some of their students.   Why use visualization with students when you never use them yourself?   One answer I got was along the lines of: 'people that come here don't really want to spend decades developing these skills - they just want to have a nice retreat and feel like they've done something good for themselves.'   And I sort of understand their pov - it takes months to even learn to sink your Qi - which has to happen before any actual Qigong can start... so when students come to learn a whole set and theory, you need to give them something juicy or they'll never come back...   On the other hand, I think it's disingenuous and damaging to these arts.   Any genuine masters that I've met categorically forbid using visualization in training. And once you've built enough Qi to really understand what's happening - it's obvious why... As soon as you start to visualize - Qi rises to the head and you lose Song and Ting...   Your Qi and inner awareness have to go up to your head for you to imagine Qi sinking to your dantien.   "But how come I feel stuff when I visualize (let's say) a glowing ball in my palm?"   That's often a question that comes up. If you focus your mind strongly enough anywhere on your body your nervous system will respond. Focus on your pinky, imagine it glowing or on fire and you'll start to get all manner of subtle sensations, pulsing, throbbing, pressure, heat... this is the product of focused attention interacting with your nervous system.   Qigong works through 'awareness of what is' and 'release' - and visualization works through imagination (of what isn't) and holding (a mental image). The two just work in opposite directions. Some teachers use visualizations as sort of training wheels to get things started - but then stop... I'm not sure about this method myself...   I remember how a Healing Dao guy came into class held by one of the senior students here... He explained that he's working on fusing the five elements or something like that... I asked how that worked - it involved imagining all kinds of colour balls all over the body, spinning baguas, dragons mating with tigers - then this ball goes here and that ball goes there and the bagua above spins in this direction and the one to the left spins in that direction etc etc...   We were just doing simple standing for that class... so he got put in the correct posture (he didn't know what a kwa was)... When I went round to correct people, I briefly touched his lower back just to help him relax it a little - but it seems I accidentally touched his Qi and transferred a bit of Yang Qi... he shrieked, jumped up and started bouncing around the room laughing and spazzing around. It was the first time he felt Qi.   He was shocked and confused at first and then really excited... Unfortunately, after a few classes, our main teacher said that he won't be able to continue training with us because Qi was rising to his head too strongly and he couldn't sink it no matter what. I can only assume that after many years of visualization, qi rising to the head became too strongly ingrained. But he was given some practices to do by himself to change that... not sure how he's getting on...